[Challenge] TARDIS lands in... Alien

[Siskoid]

One thing I like to do on forums is create little series that help develop content and commentary. What I propose, if there's interest, is a bi-weekly stat challenge with the following premise:

What if the TARDIS landed in... ? This week: The TARDIS lands on the Nostromo at the beginning of events in the film Alien. How do you stat up the monster(s)? What about the crew and the tech?

For extra credit: Which Doctor (and crew) do you imagine landing there, and how does it all turn out differently?

If this turns out to be fun, I'll post another challenge in a couple weeks!

[Curufea]

It's Base Under Siege ala Horror of Fang Rock, so my immediate thought is Tom Baker and Louise Jameson.

Actually, if it's from the beginning, it's more like Seeds of Doom - but it's still Tom Baker

Changes to the plot-

The Doctor turns up and urges all crew to investigate the distress call, he gets on well with Ash, the science officer who also wants the same.
Dallas locks up the Doctor and Leela as illegal suspected stowaways until after Kane leaves the alien ship. He and Leela escape, but miss out on interpreting the warning hieroglyphs the investigating team see.
They decide (well the Doctor decides, and drags Leela along) to investigate the alien ship themselves, and try to sneak back to the TARDIS. On the way they hear Kane's death over the intercom.
Impetuously the Doctor rushes in and just sees the baby alien escape. He immediately offers his help in capturing it. Under the circumstances, Dallas agrees. Ash volunteers to be their guardian.
Plot continues as normal until after Dallas and Brett die. The Doctor and Leela rush off to do their own investigating without Ash, discovering the Company orders and that Ash is an android in another part of the ship while Ripley discovers just the orders. They rush back just in time to disable Ash, just as Lambert and Parker come to help.
They're all friends now.
They question Ash - then the Doctor repairs and reprograms him to be on their side.
Plot continues.
Leela and Ash help Parker and Lambert to collect the air filters while Ripley and the Doctor prep the escape ship. The alien attacks - Ash attacks the alien, Parker runs, Leela manages to convince Lambert to run as well. Ash is torn apart by the alien.
Meanwhile the jiggery pockery of the Doctor has increased the life support abilities of the escape ship.
Ripley, Parker and Lambert escape.
The Doctor and Leela sneak past the alien, set the self destruct and escape in the TARDIS.

[Siskoid]

Or Doc5, Adric, Tegan and Nyssa... the Alien rips Adric apart...

Seriously though, that's a nice "putting right what once went wrong" that still allows the Alien to be deadly. Don't forget to save Jones!

Now all we need are write-ups!

[Craig Oxbrow]

The Ark In Space with more money.

Keeping the Alien as uncommunicative, Ash becomes a more active threat so that he and the Doctor can have more arguments - say he gets an arm knocked off, not his head.

[cliffr]

Or with Ten:

Despite the numerous people it's killed the Doctor offers to find the alien and all the other eggs a new planet to live on where they won't harm anyone. When the alien tries to eat his head anyway, he blows it out an airlock to drift through space forever.

[Siskoid]

My attempt at stating the Alien, with much credit going to the Wirrn write-up.

ALIEN (Xenomorph)
Being the stats for an Alien's mature form if gestated inside a human being.

Awareness 2
Coordination 4
Ingenuity 2
Presence 6
Resolve 3
Strength 7

Traits
Acid Blood (Minor Good): Alien blood is an extremely potent acid and is capable of corroding on contact almost any substance with alarming speed. It causes 4 damage to anything it touches, including Armour. If it causes more damage to the Armour than that Armour can protect from, that Armour is destroyed. (The Alien is of course immune to its own blood.)
Alien (Minor Good)
Alien appearance (Major Bad): Monstrous, just monstrous. And a bad case of saliva production, too.
Armour - (Minor Good): The Alien has a hard exoskeleton that protects it from physical damage. It reduces physical damage by 5 points.
Environmental – (Major Good) - The Alien can survive in hostile environments, including vacuum conditions.
Fear Factor 4: There are few creatures in the universe as terrifying.
Natural Weapons (Minor Good) Teeth, claws, balde-tipped tail and mouth-inside-its-mouth: The Alien has a many ways to kill. +2 to Strength Damage (+4 for the tail)
Resinous Secretion (Minor Good): The Alien can secret a resin to cocoon and store prey (requires 7 Strength or more to break free, or use as camouflage (+1 Subterfuge).
Wall-Crawler (Minor Good): The Alien can creep along walls and ceilings at -1 Speed.

Skills
Athletics 4
Fighting 3
Knowledge 1
Subterfuge 4
Survival 4
Technology 1

Story Points 2-5 (the more Aliens present, the fewer Story Points they should have).

[Curufea]

All good. But I'm not sure about the fire thing. The characters always suppose that fire will work extra well against an alien - but it isn't actually shown to be effective.
Case in point-
Alien - Dallas in the tunnels with a flame thrower. Turns around, sees alien. Crew find the place Dallas disappeared - no alien blood, no alien, no Dallas - just a flame thrower with no fuel. Ergo it was used but did nothing.
Aliens - Marines use flame throwers - more marines are shown wreathed in flames than actual aliens. The aliens appear to be more prone to damage from armour piercing explosive bullets than any other form of weaponry (especially pistols, which bounce off)
Alien 3 - The alien survives molten lead. Ergo - very heat resistant.
Alien 4 - The isolation cage is rigged with incinerators - but the aliens escape before it can be shown whether fire actually effects them or not.

Also secondary evidence of - Alien: the alien survives for some time in the blast of a shuttle engine, Aliens: the queen survives in space in daylight.

[Siskoid]

You're absolutely right. I've removed the Weakness.

[Curufea]

The Leading Edge boardgame (which I also have) doesn't make flamethrowers better at killing aliens. But it does give the advantage of burning up the acid blood. So that may be something worth thinking about for players - by incinerating an alien, there is no risk of destroying the surroundings with acid. Just with fire... oh well

I'm pretty much a Giger/Alien fan as well as I've got all the books, comics, miniatures and DVDs Don't have much in the way of toys though - but then I've never got into collecting those for anything.

[cliffr]

Interesting note: I just watched the episode "Dalek" again and for the first time noticed that there is clearly an alien egg in Van Statten's collection. It can be seen best in the background, when the Doctor is unlocking the TARDIS to leave at the end of the episode.

[Curufea]

The movie Alien isn't set that far into the future. Statten possibly purchased it from Weyland-Yutani. It would have been very expensive and difficult to acquire because of the secretive nature of the company's investigations of LV-426.

Although not mentioned in the film, the first draft of the script puts the date at 2087.
Hmm, unfortunately the episode "Dalek" is set in 2012

Therefore the egg must have arrived through some other means than the plot of the Alien movies.

[cliffr]

Jan 28, 2010 2:56:25 GMT Curufea said:

Therefore the egg must have arrived through some other means than the plot of the Alien movies.

Unless you count the Aliens vs. Predator movies, which place the aliens on earth since the earliest days of human civilization.

[Siskoid]

Anyone want to try their hand at a Facehugger? Or should I post a new movie destination for the Doctor?

[Curufea]

Jan 28, 2010 4:02:55 GMT cliffr said:

Unless you count the Aliens vs. Predator movies, which place the aliens on earth since the earliest days of human civilization.

True, it depends on what you regard as canon. There can be Alien fans that disregard the AVP movies (and/or the superior comics).

As for the facehugger - I don't think it needs statting. It would be just a series of skill checks to either fend it off, run away or shoot it (ie it would be situational to the scene in the game). Failure means it gets you.

[zebaroth]

there is a adventure called Children of the Daleks that Is Alien / dalek crossover it can found here
www.ianm.eclipse.co.uk/who-rpg/index.html

[The Other]

Jan 30, 2010 2:56:45 GMT zebaroth said:

there is a adventure called Children of the Daleks that Is Alien / dalek crossover it can found here
www.ianm.eclipse.co.uk/who-rpg/index.html

Just finished reading that - WOW! I've got to admit, when this thread started, I didn't think that xenomorphs would be much of a threat, but I've been convinced.

Two questions - If a xenomorph was hosted in a Kaled... mass, for want of a better term, what would the creature look like? An octopus/starfish as presented? A tentacled xenomorph? There's a lot of possibilities there.

Second question, if a Time Lord was made the host of one, would the xenomorph that resulted have the bonus to Ingenuity, and would it "feel the turn of the universe?" There's a lot of thought to ponder there too.

It's also one of those rare instances where I could see a character like Abslom Daak fitting in quite well...

I exalt you, good sir, for twisting my poor addled mind so early on a Saturday morning!

[cliffr]

Jan 30, 2010 17:16:07 GMT The Other said:

Jan 30, 2010 2:56:45 GMT zebaroth said:

there is a adventure called Children of the Daleks that Is Alien / dalek crossover it can found here
www.ianm.eclipse.co.uk/who-rpg/index.html

Just finished reading that - WOW! I've got to admit, when this thread started, I didn't think that xenomorphs would be much of a threat, but I've been convinced.

Two questions - If a xenomorph was hosted in a Kaled... mass, for want of a better term, what would the creature look like? An octopus/starfish as presented? A tentacled xenomorph? There's a lot of possibilities there.

Second question, if a Time Lord was made the host of one, would the xenomorph that resulted have the bonus to Ingenuity, and would it "feel the turn of the universe?" There's a lot of thought to ponder there too.

I exalt you, good sir, for twisting my poor addled mind so early on a Saturday morning!

If you mean the little mutant blob inside the Dalek armor, I doubt there are any of the proper systems in there for a facehugger to put an egg in, even if it could get through the armor.

[The Other]

That was my thinking initially too, but then I thought of "Daleks in Manhattan" when one pulled that poor unsuspecting supervisor into the Dalek shell to begin their hybridization experiment... That capability mixed with xenomorph speed and ferocity could make them pretty terrifying, I think.

I don't know whether there's still a stomach as such for a xenomorph to gestate in, with all the tubes going in, but for the purposes of a good story that can probably be overlooked...

[Curufea]

Facehuggers can get through armour - they did so with Kane's helmet. Possibly they can perspire the acid they "bleed". A note on that - it's established in Alien that they do not have acid for blood. It's a special presurised subcutaneous layer probably used for defense. It's just easier to say acid for blood just because when cut they bleed it.

For variations on the concept of hybrid aliens (established in the third movie, not the first two) - there are quite a few examples in the comics.

[kingkaddish]

I would personally LOVE to see stats for an Aliens VS Predators crossover [Game"s" -OR- Movie]. It would be nice to have the other Alien forms statted up Egg, Facehugger, Royal Guard, Queen. An of course lets not forget there classic rivals the Predators. I think maybe 3 write-up types for them would cover them well... perhaps do a young pred, mature pred, and lastly a very old clan elder predator.

...now, I just gotta find a very rule skilled GM to try this for us.

Anyone up to the challenge?

hmmm... think I will make a new post challenge for this.